I’ve never met Dr. Paul Rosman, D.O. and David Edelman, co-authors of Thriving with Diabetes, so how the heck do they know what I’m thinking?

Promising “a 4-step program for long-lasting success,” the book is subtitled Learn How to Take Charge of Your Body to Balance Your Sugars and Improve Your Lifelong Health. Not a medical textbook. Not preachy. Just good, solid advice, written with the diabetes patient in mind in language we can all understand.

I like a book that not only tells me what I want to know, but what I need to know. For example, I had no idea that sleep patterns have a distinct effect on blood sugar levels. I didn’t know that others felt guilty when their sugars were out of whack or when an A1C inexplicably jumped. I thought I had the corner on that market. One particularly helpful feature of this book is the use of personal anecdotes or conversations with doctors to illustrate the challenges patients face. So it’s not just doctors lecturing, it’s patients asking. For those of us who are reading these stories, it’s a really nice touch.

The four steps the authors outline in their plan are as follows:

Step 1: Lower the highs.Step 2: Limit the lows.Step 3: Use your best to fix the rest.Step 4: Play with your diabetes.

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Play with your diabetes? Yeah, when you read that Rosman and Edelman mean relying on your intuition to experiment (carefully and safely) in order to keep favorite activities and foods in your life so as not to face daily deprivation, it makes a lot of sense.

Worksheets that include sleep and symptom diaries for the reader to use, a section on finding and maintaining peer support, and dealing with the healthcare system (starting with your own physician) are just a few of the features that make this book a valuable addition to the libraries of patients, families, friends and physicians of people with diabetes.